


in dim carcosa

by Adadzio



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Shadowlands, Threats of Violence, mentions of past rape/non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-23 07:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17075879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adadzio/pseuds/Adadzio
Summary: They say the spider who weaves her own web is a treacherous creature. Melony knows better.





	in dim carcosa

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ellanor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellanor/gifts).



> A GOT Secret Santa gift for nenuials!  
> This fic is a companion piece to my fic [Deliverance.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11571141) Though it is not necessary to read it, I reference much of the world/character building established in that fic. In Dim Carcosa takes place between sections VII and VIII. 
> 
> Enjoy ~ <3

"Do you know anything of Yi Ti?"

It was no longer an effort to conceal her anger. Maintaining the unreadable facade had become effortless, a second skin. A mask. Still, the priest's words rankled her, stirring up resentments she had thought long-dead. "Of course. I have lived in the Shadowlands half a dozen years."

The priest hardly glanced at her. "You are a common acolyte. It is not as if you leave the temple." 

Melony had once seen a fat YiTish trader in the bazaar, haggling over the price of some green dye. A monkey tail had swayed back and forth atop his head. His eyes were bright, his manner almost buoyant. "No master," she spoke, feigning deference. "How can someone so lowly be of use in Yi Ti?"

The curve of his lips was leering. "You will not be going to Yi Ti. You have heard of the City of the Winged Men, on the northwestern shore of the Hidden Sea?" 

"A city of men with leather wings, men who can fly like eagles."

He snorted. "A foolish legend from a foolish people. Regardless, you will be sent to… _observe_ the region." Melony hesitated a moment too long. "Unless you have more pressing obligations," he said dryly. The smallest twitch of a muscle had given her away. _Damn him,_ she thought. _Damn these false servants of R'hllor._  

"I shall serve as the temple wishes," she murmured. "But winged men cannot be the true matter. May I ask toward what end— ?"

He smiled. "There is a city called Carcosa, on the opposite shore of the sea."

"Beyond the Mountains of the Morn?"

"Precisely." The priest paused, as if gauging her reaction. She offered him none. "Our friends in Yi Ti have concerns. The city is said to be ruled by an exiled sorcerer lord."

Melony weighed her words carefully. "You wish me to sway the city to R'hllor?"

Again, the priest sneered. "And here I was beginning to think you had some wisdom in you." The words cut deep, but her mask went deeper. "The YiTish have no interest in our Lord, only our trade and our support."

"Then why concern themselves with this sorcerer?" 

"He claims to be the 69th Yellow Emperor of Yi Ti."

This time, Melony could not hide her astonishment. "The Yellow Emperors fell thousands of years ago."

"As you can imagine, the Azure Emperor does not appreciate such a man claiming imperial honours. To be certain, Bu Gai himself has no true power. God-emperors are puppets. Still, we support his reign in exchange for certain favours. Imports of saffron, wine, traded for our precious stones. Open travel on the road connecting Qarth to Yin, with access to Asabhad." The priest steepled his fingers thoughtfully. "This sorcerer, Chai, is possibly harmless. He is possibly not." His gaze fell back on her. "Either way, you will find out."

* * *

In a way, Carcosa was not so different from the city of her buried youth. Populous, proud, preoccupied with its own sense of culture. But it was darker — much darker than hazy, sun-beaten Volantis had ever been. Not so dark as Asshai, but dim, with only the people to enliven it. Common folk lived in the the shadow of the mountains to the south, whilst the merchants and nobles encroached the imperial palace like beetles, clambering over each other amid tents and huts and stony dwellings. She saw no winged men, only an oddly-customed city of all classes. Exuberant and at times agitated, they nonetheless seemed a contented sort of people.   

It was the twin suns that astounded her the most, for though she was logically on the same continent as Asshai and the Free Cities, beyond the Mountains of the Morn there seemed to exist two identical suns, shifting together and apart like an illusion of the eye. And there were many moons. A white moon, a black moon, a silvery moon that seemed as wispy as clouds. Even more peculiar was the fact that the moons shifted dizzyingly about the sky, as if flitting around one another. Fast, then slowing until they seemed they might rest, then quickening like comets again. The moment Melony thought she had oriented herself west, based on the white moon, was the moment the black moon overshadowed it. Though it seemed an eclipse, it was not, for in another moment the entire sky would be flipped on its axis. This celestial dance made her head spin and her belly quiver. She learned to train her gaze on the lower horizon. 

After she had arrived at the palace gate, Melony allowed an attendant to lead her across a garden of neatly-swept dirt. She felt rather out of place with caked earth beneath her sandals, and knew she looked as alien as she felt. The city's inhabitants did not cover themselves quite so completely as the Asshai'i. Several courtiers turned to look at her curiously, gazing upon her collar and scarlet robes. Feeling their suspicion, she pulled her veil from her face and nodded to them. 

"Priestess." A tall, slender boy motioned through a courtyard archway, leading her into a tiny anteroom. Despite its modest size, the place was overlaid with jade from tile to ceiling. "If you please, wait here." Melony analysed his accent, sweeping her gaze over his golden eyes and teak skin. _Lengii._ To see an islander this far north was unexpected. 

The servant swept from the room, leaving her alone save for an old woman at the end of the cramped hall. Despite her age she was dressed in a fine amber robe, lounging elegantly on a Qartheen rug. In her lap was an ornate lute.

Noticing her audience, the wrinkled woman opened her mouth and sang in perfect High Valryian:   

> _Along the shore the cloud waves break,_
> 
> _The twin suns sink behind the lake,_
> 
> _The shadows lengthen_
> 
> _In Carcosa._
> 
> _Strange is the night where black stars rise,_
> 
> _And strange moons circle through the skies,_
> 
> _But stranger still is_
> 
> _Lost Carcosa._
> 
> _Songs that the ghost grass shall sing,_
> 
> _Where flap the tatters of the king,_
> 
> _Must die unheard in_
> 
> _Dim Carcosa._
> 
> _Song of my soul, my voice is dead,_
> 
> _Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed_
> 
> _Shall dry and die in_
> 
> _Lost Carcosa._

"I see you have met our singer," came a voice to her right. "Cassilda was once was an imperial concubine, unparalleled in beauty."

 _Your concubine?_ she wished to ask, but dared not. 

Chai Luq certainly looked the part of emperor. Silver and weathered, but as tradition dictated, draped in a gown of cloth-of-gold, green pearls, and jade. "And her voice?" Melony inquired, looking back at the old singer.

The lines around Chai's eyes crinkled when he smiled. "Never beautiful, I am afraid. Her fame was found rather in poetry and the lute." He swept out a gold dagged sleeve, ushering her into his private quarters, which were only slightly more gilded. 

Melony followed politely. "How did a YiTish lady come to be here?"

Chai seemed to study his surroundings, then turned to consider her. "You will find it a haven for exiles. Just as you, priestess, come to our esteemed Carcosa." Before she could recite her formal introductions, he interrupted, looking almost jovial. "Are you perhaps here to kill me?"

_The priest steepled his fingers thoughtfully. "This sorcerer, Chai, is possibly harmless. He is possibly not." Finally, his gaze fell back on her. "Either way, you will find out."_

_"I can do more than find out." The words left her mouth before she had a chance to stop them. Melony cursed herself._

_The priest's smile was shallow. "Yes…Yromache has told me all about your studies." The man circled around his oily black table, trailing a ghostly white finger upon its surface. Melony's little finger twitched. She dug her nails hard into her palm to still it. "She has also informed me of your little expeditions outside the temple."_

_This, she had been expecting. "It was mere curiosity, master. I did meet with a wise woman— "_

_"—a shadowbinder," he said coldly. "Do not dare lie to me. You think your mistress was ignorant to your comings and goings? Even an acolyte should be more careful."_

_Melony met his pale gaze without flinching. You have died and been reborn with R'hllor's favour, she reminded herself. This man is nothing. "It was harmless. She taught me herbs."_

_"I hope it was worth it."_

_Her stomach sank. "You are not sending me to spy…"_

_The priest smiled his serpentine smile. "Oh, I am. You know how to loosen a man's tongue." Cold dread pooled deeper in the pit of her belly. He came to a stop in front of his table, a mere breath away from her. "Yromache promised me you had been trained in this way."_

_"She is punishing me," Melony said, flatly._

_"She is humbling you."_

_Melony sensed the salty warmth of blood beneath her clenched nails. "I do not understand, master."_

_"Then let us speak in terms you will understand." Those terrible eyes bore into her. "Disrobe, and I shall make clear how you must perform."_

_"I have been chosen by R'hllor…please do not— "_

_"You are a slave," he snapped. All pretence of courtesy was now gone, dashed out by her carelessness. "You think yourself a priestess? You have long to go before you can dream of such a thing. Perhaps some shadowbinder took you under her wing, perhaps you feel yourself a learned woman now. It matters not. You will be loyal to the temple."_

_"We are all slaves under R'hllor."_

_"These are not the Free Cities where everyone is a slave— " he levelled a chilling gaze at her— "and I am not Benerro. Now obey before I lose patience." Melony took a step back, meaning to flee the room, but the priest was faster, and took hold of her veil. It slipped away, but with a little struggle, he had her braid in his fist. "Do you truly wish to fight me? This, which is a familiar duty for you?"_

_In the past years, Volantis had drifted far away, like a mirage, a past life she could forget. Now it all came swimming back to her mind — horrible, suffocating nightmares. The heat of the plaza in which she had been sold. The slickness of blood from her master's whip. The stagnant stench of sweat from the men who had taken her innocence and her dreams. The indifference of priests who had deemed her little more than a temple prostitute. Her heart pounded and pounded, spreading a cold sweat down her back._

_Animal instinct swirled within her, but her trained mind filtered it into a calmer, more calculated fury. "Take your hands off me or R'hllor shall do it for you."_

_The priest was incredulous. "You threaten me with bazaar tricks? You, a worthless— "_

_In one swift motion, Melony reached down with her right hand and pulled a concealed dagger from the strap of her sandal, pressing the very tip to a pulsing vein in his neck. "No trick," she said coldly. "Only R'hllor's hand guiding mine." He attempted to jerk away, only to feel a searing pain at his groin. "There is another blade there," she informed him. "The sharpest blade in the world. Have you heard of dragonglass?"_

_A hiss left his lips as a thin river of blood trickled down his thigh, seeping through crimson robes. "You cannot think to kill me and live."_

_Melony smiled. "I do not think to kill you." The dagger at his neck glinted as it moved higher. "But yes, I do know how to loosen a man's tongue."_  

Chai laughed, halting the panic in her mind. "Forgive me for joking at your expense. It is a tiring thing, to be an exile surrounded by vipers, and at times I make light of my death. Please, let me see you at ease." 

Smiling slightly, Melony bowed to Chai Luq. The moment's pause gave her an opportunity to switch her frantic thoughts from Asshai'i to Valyrian. "I am honoured to be received by one such as you. I come from the red temple in Asshai."

"Asshai!" The sorcerer turned to her for a moment, a finger pressed to his lips. "Why send such a beauty? You could be a courtesan yourself, with all Carcosa at your heels. Think of it, foreign men in monkey-tailed hats, all the forgotten nobles of Yi Ti — trailing at your silk slippers! But, no. I can see you balk at the thought, and would prefer a man of actual strength. Bah! You would soon bore of our powdered lords."

She blushed and fingered the concealed powders within her sleeves. Danger to her person was the first thing she had learned to see, when she was half a child in the red temple. She had grown wiser each day, had honed defense to a fine art, and never looked back to acknowledge those who had succeeded in harming her over the years. R'hllor had not revealed any dark intent in this sorcerer. Still, she was never less than cautious.

Melony employed a coy glance from beneath her lashes, then brought her head back down. "In truth, it was a selfish journey. I was traveling to Asabhad, the long dusty road, and could not believe what I heard. Tales of a true descendent of Yi Ti, of the Yellow Empire. In the fire, I was led to find this noble emperor, and to offer my services."

"Ah…" Chai waggled a finger, eyes alight. "A spider who weaves her own web."

"Do not tease, my lord, the spider is a treacherous creature."

He let out a long sigh, palms toward the ceiling. "As are we all." The Lengii boy came forth with a tray of pomegranates, offering one first to the sorcerer, and then to her. She held up a pale hand to it while Chai cracked his open unceremoniously. "May I tell you a tale?"

She could not prevent a copper eyebrow from raising. "My ear is yours, lord."

"This is the story I must tell you," he declared, sucking his fingers free of sticky red juice. "One day, a prince is contemplating the words of his philosopher tutor concerning the nature of death, and wanders from the palace through an unfamiliar wilderness. He knows not how he came there, but recalls that he is — or was — ill in bed. He worries that he has wandered out of doors in a state of insensibility. The prince calms himself as he surveys his surroundings. He is aware that it is cold, though he does not exactly feel cold. He follows an ancient paved road and sees the disassembled remnants of tombstones and tombs." One by one, Chai held up three jade-encrusted fingers. With the other hand, he threw fresh seeds into his mouth. "He comes across a lynx, an owl, and a strange man dressed in animal skins carrying a torch, who ignores him. For the first time, the prince becomes aware that it must be night, though he can see as clear as day."

"Asshai is like that," Melony replied.

"Then you will know, perhaps, how this story ends. What is the price of knowing, priestess? What is the cost of divine favour? Listen, and I shall tell! Where does the prince go, once the tombs are laid before him? He sits near a tree whose roots emerge from a grave. Looking at the stone that once marked that grave, he sees his name, the moon of his birth, and the moon of his death. He then realizes that he is dead, and is amidst the ruins of the ancient and famous city of Carcosa!"

A frown passed over Melony's face. Her gaze fell on his fingers, stained bloody by the pomegranate. 

"The story, it is not to your liking?" Chai prompted.

"It is no mere story."

"Why do you say that?"

Melony felt uneasy, though she could not say why, after seeing all she had seen. 

"No matter!" The sorcerer clapped his bejewelled hands together, and turned on his heel without another glance at her. "Come, come." 

As they walked, his monkey-tail swayed and swayed, mirroring the thump of Melony's heart in her chest. "How queer of you," he mused, "to offer loyalty based only on tales of our illustrious history."

"My lord is too modest in speaking of his empire. Its history goes as far back as the Fisher Queens."

Chai stopped and appraised her, then — a long, unreadable look. "Any YiTish priest will tell you that mankind's first towns and cities arose along the shores of the Jade Sea, dismissing the rival claims of the Sarnori and Ghiscari as the boasts of savages…and the Fisher Queens as worse, as little more than a children's tale."

 _Tread carefully, Melony._ The Golden Empire of Yi Ti claimed title of the oldest civilisation of Essos, and this man claimed to be a god-emperor of thousands-years past. 

"My lord," she entreated, spreading two silk-clad arms, like a phoenix opening her fiery wings. "I meant only to honour the YiTish with comparison to the legendary realm— "

"What is a legend but a lie?"

"My lord?"

To her relief, the sorcerer did not show signs of anger. "I ask you, Melony of Asshai, not to employ this game with me. I do not believe you are here to kill me. And I do not fault you for being trained by the temple. Report to them as you will. But here and now, it is my command that you think and speak as plainly as you can."

Melony hesitated, wondering if she had made a grave mistake. "None of that," Chai rebuked, gently. He tossed his head, and the monkey tail of his hat moved with it. "We shall continue philosophising as we were! The Realm of the Fisher Queens was said to cover the lands adjoining the Silver Sea. Do you know of any such place, in reality?" His head moved to the other side, the monkey tail swishing as if part of his very head. "Think," he encouraged. There was a twinkle in his eye.

It was as if every book came rushing back to her mind's eye, every letter and map, every lesson she'd strained to overhear at the temple. Her mind churned with anxiety yet her face did not betray it. She instead forced her thought process into a synthesis of the senses, observing, calculating down a sliver of a second. She took in the posture of the sorcerer before her, his flighty manner and dress. She searched his face for any glimpse of weakness or intent. Was she a fool, to think he would trust her? Of course not. This man had survived thus far in his fallacy of a claim. That meant he had coin in high places and ears across the continent…and great intelligence. Surely he had caught wind of the Azure plot against him, surely he would be wary of a foreign priestess desiring audience. And yet here she was, still in his presence. He had made clear that he did not desire her feminine wiles, nor the temple's political support… 

_Think._

Melony cocked her head to mirror his own. "I have a story to tell you as well."

Chai clapped his hands together in delight.

She lifted her silk sleeves again, hoping she had judged him true, and indicated a circle. "R'hllor in his glory created the Silver Sea, a great inland body of water." Some men claimed that the Andals originated in the fertile land south of that sea. Melony had only ever seen an Andal man in her fires, when she asked her god for a glimpse of the future. The man was a harsh and brutish looking one, with brooding blue eyes and hair black as coal. It was a peculiar vision to Melony, who did not perceive Andals to be wise, and had not thought to ever meet one. "The people valued their sea too highly," she continued, "and stopped giving offerings to the fire. So R'hllor dried the water in the sky, and dried up the water on the land. R'hllor in his glory gave them the sea. R'hllor in his justice took it away. But R'hllor, in his mercy, still left them with three large lakes in the grasslands." She held up three fingers. "Do you know of any such place?"

He lifted a brow. It seemed to waggle playfully above his eye. "Witty priestess, the place is the Dothraki Sea."

"It is, in this age. But before there were letters in books, who is to say it was not a great floating sea palace, ruled by the wise and benevolent Fisher Queens, favoured of the gods? Who is to say that the last of the Fisher Queens did not give birth to Huzhor Amai, ancestor of the Tall Men? We are so young in this world, so ignorant, that we simply _cannot_ say." 

"I can," replied Chai.

She shook her head, incensed. "Which god grants you this knowledge? The Lion of the Night?"

"Look, Melony of Asshai!" He clasped his stained palms toward the window, as if making a solemn oath. She followed his hands and gaze upward, and bit her lip to keep from gasping. 

"By R'hllor," she whispered.

Chai's eyes were even brighter in the light of the moon that had dipped to loom next to the palace, so close it nearly kissed the windowpane. "The silver moon visits at this precise minute," he smiled. "You are gods-favoured to see it."

Her fingertips reached out, straining upward as if she might touch it, but she remembered herself and snatched them back, cheeks burning. 

"Do not be ashamed," said the sorcerer. "Carcosa's moons still confound me, and I have lived beneath them for…well…" He pondered that, then shook his head. "I need no god nor moon to grant me sight. I have seen everything and more. I am as old as the Tall Men, and older still. As old as the Great Empire of the Dawn."

She laughed. And yet it became clear that the sorcerer was making no jape. Somehow she knew he was being truthful, and a deeper tremble set into her heart. "That is not possible. To be as ancient as…"

Chai smiled warmly, sincerely. It was how she imagined a father would smile. "It is possible." Then, he tossed his monkey tail to the other side. "Would you like to learn how?"   

**Author's Note:**

> Carcosa and its yellow emperor are references to "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" by Ambrose Bierce, The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers, and the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft. It is one of several Lovecraftian references in the lore of ASOIAF. Chai's dialogue is referenced from Bierce, and Cassilda's song is quoted from Chambers.


End file.
